Back on track
Great, we’ve finally got moving again. We hopped on a train this morning – another new mode of transport to add to my collection! Unfortunately, we didn’t get too far. We’d only been on the train about 15 minutes when we were told that we had to get off and take a bus because the tracks are being repaired.
Using public transport in Austria isn’t always easy. It doesn’t help that the country’s littered with mountains. The road we took was narrow, twisted and steep. If I weren’t a seagull, I’d probably have been seasick. Her Ladyship certainly looked pretty green around the gills by the time we arrived.
Because of all those shenanigans it took us almost two hours to cover 30 km, but we finally made it to Graz, capital of the province of Styria, population around 280,000. A little gem of a city and, I suspect, not as well-known as it deserves to be.
It seems that we will be spending a few days here, as the Wingless Wonders thought that, while they are waiting around for the car, they might as well tick something off their list of ‘things-that-we’ve-always-been-talking-about-doing-but-never-got-around-to-yet’. I’m game.
The beautifully preserved old town centre of Graz has a few modern architectural surprises. To my beady little eye, the juxtaposition of old and
new works really well. The atmosphere in the city centre is very relaxed, helped no doubt by the prohibition of cars and buses. You only have to dodge the trams and bicycles (and the ubiquitous pedestrians staring at their mobiles).
First off, we got into true tourist mode and took another train of sorts, the funicular, up to the top of the Schlossberg, a hill overlooking Graz. This was the site of a fortress in the past, nowadays a public park, and the icon of Graz, the Uhrturm (clock tower) is located there. Pretty, and pretty confusing: the large hands mark the hours, the small ones the minutes. The views from the Schlossberg are wonderful.
Later in the day I got to hobnob with the aristocracy – peacocks to be exact – in the gardens of Eggenberg Palace. Built in the 17th century, the palace has 365 windows, 31 rooms on each floor, 24 state rooms with 52 doors and a total of 60 windows and four corner towers – representing the seasons, weeks, days, hours and minutes. Someone went to a lot of trouble to come up with that!
